How to use the camera control button on your new iPhone 16

The new iPhone 16/16 Pro camera control button is almost as polarizing as politics. Some people love it; they think it makes it easier to take photos on the fly instead of unlocking the iPhone with Face ID and launching the camera app. The button also provides quick access to visual intelligence in the the latest iOS 18 update and can serve as an accessibility tool for people who struggle with mobility.

Other people hate the Camera control button enough to call it the worst feature that Apple has added to the iPhone. It’s very hard, TaiBut you can understand the point once you start using the Camera Control button for yourself. The button is toward the bottom half of the iPhone, so you’ll need to balance the device carefully with your index finger and thumb while pressing to capture a photo. If you don’t have the mechanism on your wrist, it makes the phone shake a bit – the complete antithesis of how you want a phone to move when you’re trying to take a photo. Apple has algorithms that help with some of the shakes due to Camera Control, but there is still some cognitive dissonance. How am I supposed to believe that the photo I took was stable when I can feel the iPhone shaking as I take it?

If you’re new to the iPhone 16/16 Pro, you’re probably wondering about the usefulness of a button that no one asked for. My job is to give instructions after using the product itself, so at least you can derive some use from a function that no one was clamoring for. As I said, the Camera control button is useful for quickly taking photos. But you can do a few other things if you decide the old way of snapping pictures on the iPhone always suits you better than this new thing.

Press to shoot

The Camera Control button on the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro is a physical button with the DNA of a MacBook trackpad. Press hard, like you would with the power or volume buttons, or press lightly for a soft press. The button area is capacitive, so you can control the interface by sliding your finger.

Double-press the camera control button to zoom in on the iPhone’s viewfinder. Can you press back to take a photo or long press to start recording a video. If you don’t press it at all, by default you can use the camera control button to zoom in and out between the camera lenses, including that 5x telephoto that Apple has included for both sizes of phone. iPhone 16 Pro. You can touch it lightly Camera Control button twice to cycle through other settings, including exposure, depth and the new iPhone 16 photo styles.

The soft press-and-slide mechanism was super confusing at first. It took me a while to understand what a soft press was with the Control Camera button and recognize the animations of the iOS interface when activated. I find it easier to use the sliding mechanism of the phone if I stabilize it with my other hand.

If you have upgraded to iOS 18.2Apple allows you to control exposure and lock focus with the Camera Control slider. Is it easy to install in the Settings app, but you need to do all that before taking a photo.

Customize the Control Camera button

I am an Android user most of the timeand my favorite shortcut to access the camera app is to double press the power button. To this end, I did not mind that the Camera control button requires a double press before being activated. But I went for the fastest shortcut to launch after one click. Apple allows you to do that from Settings. Below Camera Controltap to choose between a single or double click to launch the camera.

The Camera Control button can also be added or used as a accessibility tool for people with accessibility needs. Below Settings > Accessibility > Camera Controlyou can adjust the firmness of the hard and hard presses of the button and also select how strong the press should be.

You don’t even have to use it

You don’t have to use the Camera Control button to launch the iPhone’s camera app. If you dig back into the iOS settings panel, under the Camera control settings, you can program it to launch something else despite the limited options. You can choose between the built-in QR code scanner, the magnifier to zoom in on tiny real-life text, or any third-party app that has implemented the new hardware. You can also disable the Camera Control button entirely if it interferes with the rest of your iPhone experience.